Read Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice for Free Online Page A

of pork. In addition to the unappetizing food, an underlying odor of industrial solvent from the nearby factory wafted through the air. I got the feeling that everyone who was not from Sanok wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. The bus company management wasn’t going to let us go, however, and continued with toasts well into the evening. Finally, at 11:15 p.m., as coffee was being served, the World Bank team awkwardly rose, made their excuses, climbedback on the bus, and took it to Rzeszow, the closest town with a decent hotel.
    My BCG colleagues waited until the World Bank team was safely out of sight before they also rose and made their excuses. They went outside and Wolfgang negotiated with two taxi drivers to take them the whole six hours back to Warsaw that night.
    I was the only one left—a twenty-six-year-old MBA with one year of consulting experience—to save this company from disaster.
    After coffee I said my good-byes to the management, who didn’t seem to understand that I was a nobody compared to everyone who had just left. I was then escorted to the Hotel Turysta, which would be my home for the next few months.
    The Turysta was a musty, four-story concrete building a couple of blocks from the San River. It had no elevator so I had to take the stairs. The passageway was narrow and dimly lit, and my room was tiny. More hall than room, it had two twin beds that were pushed against opposite walls, and the only floor space was the gap between them. Bolted to the wall over one of the beds was a thirteen-inch, black-and-white television. A plain, chintzy end table was pushed between the beds. On top of this was a single lamp. Above the lamp was a small window that overlooked a vacant lot.
    It wasn’t the Four Seasons, but I was so excited to be in Poland that I didn’t care.
    I tried the plastic rotary phone to see if it worked, but the line only connected to the matronly woman at the front desk, who didn’t speak a word of English. I unpacked, stuffing my clothes into the wardrobe. The room was cold and the radiator wasn’t working, so I put on the parka I’d brought for the upcoming winter. I turned on the TV—there were only three stations, all in Polish. One channel was news, one was soccer, and one was some show about sheep. I turned off the TV. I fiddled fruitlessly with the dial of a shortwave radio I’d brought, but found nothing and gave up.
    I got into bed and tried to sleep, but it was simply too cold. I tapped the radiator and turned the valve near the floor, but no heatcame. Normally I would have called the front desk, but given the language barrier, that wouldn’t have helped. I got some more clothing out of my wardrobe and pulled the blankets off the other bed and buried myself under all of it. Even though I was still wearing my parka, this didn’t work either. I tossed and turned all night and barely slept. When the sun began to rise, I turned on the shower, hoping that at least would warm me. I waited and waited for the stream of hot water, but it never got better than lukewarm.
    I skipped the shower, got dressed, and went down to the Turysta’s small restaurant to meet my translator for the first time. A trim man in an ill-fitting, gray polyester suit stood bolt upright as soon as I appeared. He tucked a rolled-up newspaper under an arm and extended a hand. “Mr. William?”
    I took his hand. “Yes. That’s me.”
    “Hello. My name is Leschek Sikorski!” he said enthusiastically.
    Leschek, a few years older and a little taller than me, had light brown hair, bright green eyes, and a neatly trimmed beard. In different circumstances he might have been good-looking, but the bad suit—and his crooked teeth—dashed that possibility.
    “Please, sit.” Leschek motioned toward a chair. “How was your sleep?” he asked, nearly shouting at the end of the sentence.
    “Cold, actually. There was no heat in the room.”
    “Yes. They don’t turn it on until winter officially